Tagged: woodstock40thanniversary

We are going to move on from Woodstock, and this is the last stop. I slapped this on the other day and it pretty much stopped me in my tracks. More than a few times during the Woodstock 40th anniversary weekend I read where the music itself at the 1969 festival wasn't that great. Woodstock 40 Years On - Back To Yasgur's Farm , a new six-CD set revisiting the music from the great festival, makes a strong case that the music in that moment of time was terrific. Yeah, I know - this is a [...]

It was the first, and most important, question of the day: just what does one wear to Woodstock? We were headed to the "Heroes of Woodstock" show Saturday at Bethel Woods Center, on the grounds of the original 1969 Woodstock festival, and we wanted to fit in. Thinking that a Hawaiian shirt might be a little ostentatious, by the time we got to Woodstock we knew we were wrong. Because everywhere you looked, there was tie-dye. Tie-dyed shirts, tie-dyed pants, possibly even a couple of tie-dyed people. In fact the only thing more plentiful than tie-dye on Saturday was gray hair [...]

MUSIC NEWS - On the 40th Anniverary of one of the most important music (and societal) events in history, Woodstock , NY area radio personality, Pete Fornatale (and host of the syndicated Mixed Bag Radio program) has just released his Woodstock tome, Back to the Garden; The Story of Woodstock published by Touchstone books (buy it below thru MNN). An excellent read, Fornatale examines the landmark fest and brings us the true spirit through the words of some of the era's biggest musical talent. [...]

Richie Havens Well, here we are in New York's Hudson Valley just about 30 miles from Bethel, where the Woodstock 40th anniversary festival will take place on Saturday. The event, called "The Heroes of Woodstock" because it isn't really sanctioned by the promoters who put on the original festival (and who own the copyright on the Woodstock name), is at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts which is this fancy $100 million entertainment complex built on the grounds of the original festival. Friday afternoon, they kicked off the weekend's festivities with a media-only performance [...]

UPDATE: We're taking a few days off while we travel to Bethel for the big Woodstock event August 15. We hope to post a report early Sunday - come back then, or while away the time with some of these reposts. Nobody is going to be caught short this time around - the 40th anniversary of Woodstock offers plenty of opportunity for promoters and performers to make a few bucks. Which I guess is only fair, because many of them took a bath in 1969. Michael Lang, one of the festival's promoters, has a new book [...]

By the time I got to Woodstock it was already over. I went to my very first rock concerts in 1969, and some of the artists mentioned from the stage the incredible groovy far-out gas that was something called Woodstock. In October 1969 they booked this thing called a " Rock Jubilee " in Houston's Sam Houston Coliseum, featuring the Byrds, Poco, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. It was supposed to end around 6 p.m., but it went to about 10 and they finally yanked the plug on the Airplane. Before they did that, Grace [...]

Woodstock may have turned out to be just a mere music festival, but it turned into a signal moment in pop culture only by accident. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong that August weekend in 1969, did. But the music was great and the crowd- which swelled to an astounding 400,000 to 500,000 people - was even better. Originally the festival was to be a moneymaking deal - however we all know what happened when it became a "free" event as the fences fell. You can see how promoters figured they'd make a fortune, when you [...]

In 1969, nobody knew that the Woodstock music festival would be the defining cultural event of the era. If we knew that in advance, some things may have been different. For instance: what if the Beatles had played Woodstock? On the other side of the Atlantic, the Beatles were nearing the end of the line. Although no one else suspected it, the four Beatles may have realized the group's demise was imminent. And it is possible they were looking to say goodbye from the grandest stage of all. They were filming a movie of their recording sessions and [...]

By the time I got to Woodstock it was already over. I went to my very first rock concerts in 1969, and some of the artists mentioned from the stage the incredible groovy far-out gas that was something called Woodstock. In October 1969 they booked this thing called a " Rock Jubilee " in Houston's Sam Houston Coliseum, featuring the Byrds, Poco, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. It was supposed to end around 6 p.m., but it went to about 10 and they finally yanked the plug on the Airplane. Before they did that, Grace [...]

Clockwise, from top left: Sam Andrew, James Gurley, Dave Getz, Peter Albin and up front, Janis Joplin This year is, of course, the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival and there is promise of many celebrations to mark the occasion. One of the most auspicious will be August 15 in Bethel, New York, on the site of the original festival: the "Heroes of Woodstock," featuring Mountain, Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Country Joe McDonald, the Levon Helm Band, Jefferson Starship and Big Brother and the Holding Company. This lineup is also touring the [...]

Johnny Winter When I worked at a small Southeast Texas daily newspaper, we used to try to find "local" angles in pretty much everything in order to have something special for the readers. Once I thought about writing a column for the 10th anniversary of Woodstock (that would be in 1979) about all of the people from the Golden Triangle area of Texas (Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange) who played at Woodstock. It was a pretty lame idea back then to put into print, but today this is the internet - and it's the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, so [...]

If you didn't know - or care - this year happens to be the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Last year we were kind of kicking around ideas for a family vacation, and when we learned that my wife and daughter would be unavailable to travel in August 2009, I had a flash: "Let's go to Woodstock!" So my son and I planned to make a pilgrimage this summer. We dreamed that maybe some of the old performers would be at a 40th anniversary concert, and maybe some of the dudes who were around in 1969 but didn't make it Woodstock might [...]

By the time I got to Woodstock it was already over. I went to my very first rock concerts in 1969, and some of the artists mentioned from the stage the incredible groovy far-out gas that was something called Woodstock. In October 1969 they booked this thing called a " Rock Jubilee " in Houston's Sam Houston Coliseum, featuring the Byrds, Poco, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. It was supposed to end around 6 p.m., but it went to about 10 and they finally yanked the plug on the Airplane. Before they did that, Grace [...]

Nobody is going to be caught short this time around - the 40th anniversary of Woodstock offers plenty of opportunity for promoters and performers to make a few bucks. Which I guess is only fair, because many of them took a bath in 1969. Michael Lang, one of the festival's promoters, has a new book The Road To Woodstock which he's been promoting. In one interview, he recalled that the festival wasn't known only as "Woodstock Music and Art Fair" at first - it was "An Aquarian Exposition." Woodstock, New York (about 50 miles to the northeast of where [...]

In 1969, nobody knew that the Woodstock music festival would be the defining cultural event of the era. If we knew that in advance, some things may have been different. For instance: what if the Beatles had played Woodstock? On the other side of the Atlantic, the Beatles were nearing the end of the line. Although no one else suspected it the four Beatles may have realized the group's demise was imminent. And it is possible they were looking to say goodbye from the grandest stage of all. They were filming a movie of their recording sessions and [...]

Woodstock may have turned out to be just a mere music festival, but it turned into a signal moment in pop culture only by accident. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong that August weekend in 1969, did. But the music was great and the crowd- which swelled to an astounding 400,000 to 500,000 people - was even better. Originally the festival was to be a moneymaking deal - however we all know what happened when it became a "free" event as the fences fell. You can see how promoters figured they'd make a fortune, when you [...]

Is the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, held in 1969, truly a defining moment in human history? No, but it's always been a good excuse to have a party. Many people are are probably already sick of the ongoing 40th anniversary of Woodstock this summer - however we could all take a little lesson from a time that was a little more daring and hopeful, and tolerant. Woodstock will be celebrated most notably at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on the original festival grounds with the Heroes [...]

Johnny Winter When I worked at a small Southeast Texas daily newspaper, we used to try to find "local" angles in pretty much everything in order to have something special for the readers. Once I thought about writing a column for the 10th anniversary of Woodstock (that would be in 1979) about all of the people from the Golden Triangle area of Texas (Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange) who played at Woodstock. It was a pretty lame idea back then to put into print, but today this is the internet - and it's the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, so [...]

No, the Doors didn't play at Woodstock, so don't be so freakin' literal. Legendary rock shutterbug Henry Diltz named his Morrison Hotel Gallery in honor of his association with that august ensemble, but he ranged far and wide in the rock 'n' roll world, and one of his plum assignments was official photographer for the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of that golden moment of the Aquarian age, Diltz has some big plans for Morrison Hotel. On August 13th, he'll pull back the curtain on an eye-popping collection of images from that historic event, many [...]

MUSIC NEWS - The Woodstock 40th Anniversary excitement marches on; a new feature film from Ang Lee - TAKING WOODSTOCK , battling hippies to run "unauthorized" fest in SF, dvd re-release, NY State anniv concert , TV specials , WOW! And now, word from our friends at Rhino of their new boxed set called, WOODSTOCK -- 40 YEARS ON: BACK TO YASGUR'S FARM! And with all the talk about the social and historical significance, it's great to [...]